Commentary: Why Tennessee voters cling to Trump

Thursday

Randy Boyd’s Republican gubernatorial primary campaign has taken to referring to one of his competitors derisively in recent weeks as “D.C. Diane Black.”

But Black, a four-term member of Congress, probably would embrace that nickname if President Donald Trump put his stamp of approval on her campaign before this week’s election.

As of late last week, he had not endorsed any Republican in the primary in which the four main competitors, Boyd, Black, Franklin businessman Bill Lee and Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell, are closely crowded, according to a JMC Analytics and Polling survey released last week.

Trump is very popular among Republicans in the state and holds his own among all Tennesseans. In a Tennessee Star poll released earlier this month, he had an 86.5 approval rating among likely Republican voters and in an April Middle Tennessee State University poll had a 50-41 approval-disapproval rating.

Black’s television and radio advertising has linked her to Trump and even included him voicing her name, but Boyd and Lee have used their advertising to tout their support of the president to counteract their rivals’ claim that neither one was a true Trump backer.

Even the top two Democratic gubernatorial candidates have taken pains not to dis the president.

“I’m not running against or for President Trump ,” former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean said in February. “I obviously would seek to have a positive relationship with the president of the United States. I think that would be beneficial to the state.”

“He would be our president ,” state Rep. Craig Fitzhugh. “And, yes we would have a relationship with that administration.”

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Phil Bredesen, a former Tennessee governor, also cut a commercial saying he wasn’t “running against Donald Trump” and that if he “proposes something good for Tennessee, I’ll be with him.”

Just last week, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp won a resounding victory in the Republican gubernatorial primary runoff after he was endorsed by Trump. While we believe the tide turned for Kemp more on secret recordings made of his runoff opponent, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, the endorsement by the president may have clinched the choice for some voters.

The left may whine about the “good ol’ days” of former President Barack Obama, but they weren’t the “good ol’ days” for conservatives and most of Middle America. We won’t rehash every detail, but Obamacare, Benghazi, illegal immigrants and the promotion of sexual ethics different from those accepted for millennia were just the tip of the iceberg for many voters.

Those same voters not only didn’t like the policies that were being promoted, but they also felt representatives of their own party wouldn’t go to bat for them and that the mainstream media no longer presented an impartial view of the issues but had become biased.

If there was someone who was right on the issues, wasn’t afraid of confronting those in his or her party, and didn’t mind taking on the media, the thinking went, that is someone we could get behind.

Enter Donald Trump.

Three years later, with that candidate now the president, his supporters have allowed his previous sexual relationships, revolving door Cabinet members, media beat downs, personal boastings and politically incorrect language to roll off his back. It’s not that they don’t care, but they prefer the results they can see — a roaring economy, tax cuts, a defeated Islamic State, conservative Supreme Court justice appointments, deregulatory efforts, potential peace with North Korea.

Meanwhile, Democrats have slid so far to the left that some of its members are embracing socialism and demanding the elimination of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. They’re making it difficult for their traditional adherents who cast a vote for Trump to return to the fold.

The president won’t be on the ballot in this week’s Tennessee election, but that won’t keep candidates from embracing him or at least from outright opposing him. And for a man referred to as an “amateur” and “unfit,” that’s pretty high cotton.

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